Secure email and LibreOffice documents

On the Safe Side

Aside from GnuPG, which is well known among Linux users for general file and email encryption and signatures, support for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is built in to many free and proprietary products, such as web browsers, email programs, and office suites. SSL is used not only for encrypting access to online services, but for encryption and digital signatures of documents. In this article, I’ll show an easy way to create and use a personal, self-signed certificate for use in Firefox (Iceweasel in Debian), Thunderbird (Icedove in Debian), and Libre/ OpenOffice.

The leading email applications include new features for helping users secure and authenticate their mail messages, but each tool has a different approach to handling tasks such as signing and encryption. This article describes how to add encryption and digital signatures to the Thunderbird, Kmail, and Evolution mail clients.